Evangelical Homeschoolers Start Teaching Evolution

Report: demand is growing for Darwinism in homeschool textbooks

Many parents who homeschool their children are evangelical Christians, and if they want creationist textbooks they have plenty to choose from. But for evangelical parents who believe in mainstream biology, the options are thin on the ground - and now some parents are demanding them.

Erinn Cameron Warton, an evangelical and a scientist who homeschools, told the Atlantic that "she was horrified when she opened a homeschool science textbook and found a picture of Adam and Eve putting a saddle on a dinosaur. 'I nearly choked,' says the mother of three." Warton has since put together her own homeschool curriculum.

Another evangelical mom who homeschools, Jen Baird Seurkamp, explained to the Atlantic that she "avoids textbooks that discredit evolution."

At least one publisher has started catering to evangelical parents who want textbooks that fairly present evolutionary theory. Christian Schools International are marketing a curriculum that "clearly presents science from a Christian perspective, but does not attempt to discredit the theory of evolution," their science advisor told the Atlantic.

Even the very religious can reconcile Evolution and Creationism. It's been done before with the acceptance of the Sun-centered solar system and a few other scientific findings, albeit with resistance. Leave science to scientists and let religion stick to addressing the spiritual needs of people.

Yes, they are. The Bible says that Adam was made by God from a pile of mud by shaping it and blowing the breath of life into it and then Eve was made by putting him to sleep and taking one of his rib bones, because Adam was lonely. If you believe in evolution, Eve would have had to come first, wouldn't she?

If you are going to dispense with that little fairy tale, then you have already turned your back on Christian Creationism. If you are going to say that evolution is the method with which God performs creation, then you may as well call it a new religion, where Adam and Eve never really lived in the Garden of Eden, Noah never built an ark, and Joshua never "fit the battle of Jericho".

@Dan_Tien - well said. Yes, there are some discrepancies that I have been unable to come to terms with, but I'm sure I'll have a justification for it by the time the monkey types out the full works of shakespeare with the use of natural selection.

Actually the one thats sticks me the most is the flood over all the lands.

I seriously doubt if even the most fervent evangelical home schoolers want their kids to grow up stupid. Teaching proper science is critical to schooling a child that is going to be able to thrive in a modern society. This is a good trend.

People who can find a middle ground between creationism and biological evolution are cheating themselves. The two are as distinct as oil and water. They are not the least bit compatible with one another from the scientific perspective. Even I can find compatibility between religion and science at a certain level, but not between evolution and creationism or intelligent design. In science instruction teach biological evolution. In religion teach creationism if you want, but don't confuse the two. Creationism is not science.

Saying the word evangelical does not mean Christian. Most Christian homeschoolers do so to keep in check what is taught to their children. Leave out the word evangelical and then you are not implying Christian. I would never teach my child from a book that has a picture of Adam and Eve climbing on a dinosaurs back. That's false. Humans did not live on the earth during the time of the dinosaurs. In the Bible it says God created the world in 6 days. Who knows how long a day is to God? It is clearly stated that animals were created first. Dinosaurs were long gone by the time God created man. Also there is adaptation of species. Some Creationist do not believe this, I do. I will never believe we decended from Apes as some evolutionist do. They can hold up partial skeletal remains of an extinct species all they want, I will never believe we decended from it or climbed out of the so called "primordial sludge" and evolved from there.

I have no problem with the adaptation of species. I think however that those seven days of creation is predated. I think it is possible that life existed before those seven days of creation. I think there was a long unwritten history between creating the heavens and the earth and that first day.

@crusader It also never addressed the topic of life outside of the Garden while it was inhabited and there is no way to know how long that was. I do believe every word of the Bible but but what happened and was not recorded is still a mystery.

I am a creationist but that is stupid. I don't doubt the age of dinosaurs or that they came long before man. I just don't beleive in evolution of man. I do Bible beleive every word of the Bible, it does not say that man was the first life on earth. So I think there was life on earth long before man.

@John_Matrix The evidence although considered fact over theory is not even proven. The so called missing link should still exist, you say evolution doe not stop and many years from now man will be evolved more than now. Why did evolution not continue from the beginning on the so called primordial ooze half between now and when it started and create the missing link in existence today or something between man and ape.

There has been evidence of missing links found as you put it. As animals evolve the less evolved counterparts often die out as the more dominant subspecies takes hold. Evolution may not be perfect and answer every single question as of yet but it is founded on extremely strong evidence and therefore valid to he taught and further expanded upon. To take the Bible literally word for word is just asinine. The logistical aspects of the Noah's Ark story alone disproves it in addition to no solid evidence of a world wide flood as described in the Bible and that's just one example of many. To use the Bible and it's stories to teach from a moral standpoint is one thing but evidence and even basic logic alone disproves it in a literal sense.

I'm certain that Home Schooling isn't perfect but knowingly sending your kid to a Union Shop where leftwing social engineering takes precedence over a valid Education ain't great either. Some of the Public schools in NYC have an abysmal 26% graduation rate and the Unions STILL don't want them closed. Oy Vey.

The idiots got what they wanted, religious ignorance in a book. If they actually wanted a proper education, they should have asked questions or kept their kids in school with actual educators instead of poisoning their children's minds with religious filth.

I know a few Creationist homeschoolers, and they are not as stupid or close-minded as the press would have you believe. One of them told me they'd be happy for Creationism to just get air time, and hope that people would voluntarily believe it over Evolution. If you truly believe your cause is just, you don't need to suppress the other side, right?

What I always ask bout garden of Eden myth, A lot of begatting happened. With who or what -if Bible is true it might be incest . If evolution is true it might be beastiality . Which is it ? Maybe its because the misogynistic Bible never bothers to mention female children created in adam and eve's family ? Or did they have intercourse with neandertals ?

So what do creationists who are struggling to push emerging proof that the Bible is a collection of ancient myths back into a form acceptable to Christians deal with evidence of life within meteorites?

I've noticed that you used reasoning in all of your posts on this thread. I'm an agnostic that is doomed to question Biblical teachings and search for concrete proof to support them. If the Bible is truth and an all powerful being does exist then that being does not owe us an explanation. There is no reason to believe that an all powerful being would be content to place life on just one world.

They are a way of teaching 'biblical science' without the scrutiny that afflicts public schools.

Vouchers are a plan to put tax money into private hands, it's not about education at all. Only the religious right will go along for the possibility of teaching biblical science in schools not subject to constitutional scrutiny.

The voucher and online school plans are a product of ALEC, and are designed to profit ALEC members.

@Vance1 this is why you needed biology. We didn't evolve from apes. We evolved from ancestral primates that may have looked like apes but are not the same. Btw the only thing different between us and a chimp is a dna sequence and a fully opposable thumb. Why do all animals have noses ears and mouths? Because we are all the same category of animal...mammal.

@Vance1 Ever heard of evolutionary lines? Because there is a new one does not require the demise of the previous. Saying that I have to include that there were lines that did die out. As time goes on the blanks get filled in. That's because science is always looking.